Halfbrick has made some of the most well known games for mobile devices and consoles (but mostly mobile).  There’s Raskulls, which is what a sequel to Mr. Driller probably should’ve been.  And the continuous runner/flyer Jetpack Joyride.  And who could forget Fruit Ninja from the early days of mobile gaming?  And now the characters from those titles have come together for a player vs. player action strategy game called Magic Brick Wars.  It kind of reminds me of the classic arcade game Rampart.  It’s available as a free-to-play download on mobile devices, but reviewed on iPad here.

Your opponent has the top half of the playfield, and you’re on the bottom.  You’ll slide Tetris-like blocks to your side to help defend your area.  But you’ll have to wait a few seconds before you can send out another one.  You can also side attackers, but they take up mana energy that refills over time.  Some of these fighters will walk forward and directly attack your opponent, while others will sit back and shoot fireballs from a distance.  If you can reach your opponent at the far end and land an attack, you’ll take off one of their hearts.  Remove all five to win the game, but if they do that to you, you’ll lose!  There is also a mining mini game that you can play to gather materials to level up your fighters.  You’ll just run around mazes and tap on blocks to mine them, but you can only mine so many per day as you’ll lose stamina as you dig.

Unfortunately, the game didn’t keep me interested.  I found the other players difficult and I lost most of the time.  Plus I never could get into games like Rampart, no matter how hard I tried.  And the graphics are too teeny tiny, even on the iPad!  But it is free so if it sounds interesting to you, might as well try it!

Kid Factor:

Even though you attack other players with ninjas and fireballs, defeated characters just disappear or explode into smoke when defeated, so violence isn’t too bad.  Reading skill is needed for the text, and younger gamers may find it too difficult.  Parental supervision is recommended for the in-game ads and purchases.

Tags: Game Reviews